On the margins of the G20 Energy/Environment Ministerial Meeting in Karuizawa (14-16 June), the EU and Japan decided to strengthen their dialogue and cooperation on innovation for a clean energy transition and addressing climate change.
The Japanese Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry, Hiroshige Eko, and the European Commissioner for Climate Action and Energy, Miguel Arias Cañete, agreed that this enhanced cooperation could cover, inter alia: - long-term energy/climate strategies; - the development of stable and transparent electricity markets to reliably and cost-effectively integrate variable renewable energy sources; - the sharing of best practices on large-scale demonstration projects and effective policy frameworks in energy efficiency and renewables, with a focus on the building sector and offshore wind energy; - the development of hydrogen and fuel cell technologies, and the policy and regulatory frameworks enabling their deployment, in particular in view of a trilateral EU-Japan-US cooperation on hydrogen; - promoting R&D cooperation on clean technologies (through information exchange and financing programmes) to achieve a balance between anthropogenic emissions and emission removals (according to the Paris Agreement); - identifying concrete areas for collaboration on nuclear waste, decommissioning and safety of advanced nuclear technologies. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)